This disclosure generally relates to technical fields including a sewing machine and a computer-readable recording medium storing a sewing machine operation program. More specifically, this disclosure relates to a sewing machine, which includes an operation device capable of instructing movement of an embroidery frame. This disclosure also relates to a computer-readable recording medium storing a sewing machine operation program, which may be used to operate the sewing machine.
Conventionally, some sewing machines, which are capable of stitching a plurality of stitch patterns, are constructed so that a feed dog provided at a sewing machine bed may be switched into a normal state and a drop feed state. In the normal state, the feed dog moves a work cloth by protruding intermittently from a top surface of a needle plate provided at the sewing machine bed. In the drop feed state, the feed dog does not protrude from the top surface of the needle plate, and does not move the work cloth. Sewing in the drop feed state is conducted when a user carries out sewing so as to move the work cloth by means of a manual operation.
For example, in recent years, in the field of quilting, a decorative work piece may be fabricated with mere stitching of the work cloth. In this case, it is desired that a feed direction or a feed amount of the work cloth is arbitrarily changed, so that, with the feed dog being in the drop feed state, sewing may be carried out while the work cloth may freely move by means of a user's manual operation. Such a manner of sewing is referred to as free-motion sewing.
However, at the time of carrying out the free-motion sewing, when a stitch pattern unsuitable for free-motion sewing (such as, over casting or buttonhole sewing, for example) has been selected, a beautiful stitch shape may sometimes not be obtained. To solve such a problem, there has been proposed a sewing machine provided with an announcing means for, when a feed dog is in a drop feed state, announcement whether a stitch pattern selected by a pattern selection means is adaptive to be stitched in the drop feed state (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 10-146481). According to the conventional sewing machine, a stitch pattern suitable for free-motion sewing may be stitched based on a result of the announcement, and operability of the sewing machine may be improved.